Barbara Bush brought plainspoken, grandmotherly style to White House

Barbara Bush didn’t hesitate to tell people her trademark pearl necklaces were fake. Americans liked that everything else about the snowy-haired first lady was real.

The wife of the nation’s 41st president and mother of the 43rd brought a plainspoken, grandmotherly style to buttoned-down Washington, displaying an utter lack of vanity about her white hair and wrinkles.

“What you see with me is what you get. I’m not running for president — George Bush is,” she said at the 1988 Republican National Convention, where her husband, then vice president, was nominated to succeed Ronald Reagan.

Bush died Tuesday, according to a statement from family spokesman Jim McGrath. She was 92.

A funeral is planned Saturday at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Houston, which Bush and her husband, former President George H.W. Bush, regularly attended. Bush will lie in repose Friday at the church for members of the public who want to pay respects. Saturday’s service will be by invitation only, according to the George Bush Presidential Library Foundation.

The Bushes, who were married on Jan. 6, 1945, had the longest marriage of any presidential couple in American history. And Mrs. Bush was one of only two first ladies who had a child who was elected president. The other was Abigail Adams, wife of John Adams and mother of John Quincy Adams.

The former first lady met her husband, former President George H.W. Bush, in Greenwich. The couple was living in New Haven when their son George W. Bush was born while George H.W. Bush was attending Yale University.

George H.W. Bush lived in Greenwich before going away to school. His father was Prescott Bush, a U.S. senator from Connecticut.

“I had the best job in America,” she wrote in a 1994 memoir describing her time in the White House. “Every single day was interesting, rewarding, and sometimes just plain fun.”

The publisher’s daughter and oilman’s wife could be caustic in private, but her public image was that of a self-sacrificing, supportive spouse who referred to her husband as her “hero.”

In the White House, “you need a friend, someone who loves you, who’s going to say, ‘You are great’ ” Bush said in a 1992 television interview.

Her appearance often provoked jokes that she looked more like the boyish president’s mother than his wife. Late-night comedians quipped that her bright white hair and pale features also imparted an uncanny resemblance to George Washington.

Eight years after leaving the nation’s capital, Bush stood with her husband as their son George W.Bush was sworn in as president. They returned four years later when he won a second term. Unlike Bush, Abigail Adams did not live to see her son’s inauguration. She died in 1818, six years before John Quincy Adams was elected.

Bush insisted she did not try to influence her husband’s politics.

“I don’t fool around with his office,” she said, “and he doesn’t fool around with my household.”

In her 1994 autobiography, “Barbara Bush: A Memoir,” she said she did her best to keep her opinions from the public while her husband was in office. But she revealed that she disagreed with him on two issues: She supported legal abortion and opposed the sale of assault weapons.

“I honestly felt, and still feel, the elected person’s opinion is the one the public has the right to know,” Barbara Bush wrote.

BOB CHILD / AP Former President George H.W. Bush looks up toward his portrait that is hung on the wall in Yale Commons, a large dining hall at Yale University in New Haven, Friday, May 29, 1998. Bush was attending a 50th reunion luncheon of his Yale class and...